Nick Coghlan wrote: > Pat wrote: > > On Windows, most users are used to installing precompiled binary > > packages, rather than compiling from source. When you do have to > > compile from source, it often requires you to fiddle with nitty gritty > > details about which you'd rather remain ignorant. The less fiddling > > required, the happier the user will be, and the easier it will be for > > that product to get adopted on that platform. No psychic abilities are > > required. No Python abilities are required, either, for that matter. > > ;-) > > And the fact that building *any* Windows native program without commercial > software is a PITA is the py-dev crew's fault, how?
I don't recall saying that it was their fault, but if I gave that impression I apologize. I'm mainly reacting to those individuals who keep claiming that things couldn't be any simpler and that there is no problem. Based on the quality of the rest of your reply, you clearly on not one of those individuals. In fact, you have given some great information here. So thank you. It is greatly appreciated. > The python.org releases provide pre-built binaries for Windows, support for > compiling Windows extensions with various compilers (including MinGW), and > autoconf/automake support for POSIX-ish platforms (including Cygwin). True, and I've always been glad that Tim Peters went through all the trouble of creating and supporting the Windows binaries because I was on the Windows platform when I first got introduced to Python. Thank you, Tim! > For native Windows compilation of the interpreter, they support MSVC6 and MSVC7.1. > > If you're a serious commercial Windows shop, you will have one of the Microsoft > compiler suites installed *somewhere*. At that point, building your own version > of Python is trivial. True, but see my reply to your subsequent points. > Which leaves the hobbyists, and those companies which, for whatever reason, > choose not to use Visual Studio to build C/C++ code on Windows. Exactly. And how big is that group, really? It might be quite large. > If it meets your needs, the easiest solution is to build a non-native version > using Cygwin (./configure, make, make altinstall). That's what I currently do, > as the easiest free way to hack Python on a Windows box. Yeah, but Cygwin is a bit scary for Windows folks who aren't familiar with Linux or Unix. > Which means our target group is now only those who want to build a Windows > Python binary, and don't want to use Visual Studio, and don't want to use Cygwin > (hmm, the group under discussion must be getting rather small by now). Actually, I think this group is potentially huge in comparison to the current users of Python. It's just that they aren't currently represented in the Python community. Look at the PythonCard project. I was involved in the early stages of its formation (that was when I wrote PyCrust, which was incorporated into PythonCard). A great deal of the interest in PythonCard was from hobbyists, VBers, old HyperCard developers, etc. These folks were not your typical Python programmers. They just wanted a simple tool that they could use to create simple applications. Now what if PythonCard started using some C source code as part of their project? They would either have to provide binaries, or they would have to make it easy for their developer community, many of whom are on Windows, to be able to compile C extensions for Python. If they couldn't make it easy, they would risk alienating many of their supporters. So my only point is that by making it easier to use C extensions, we have an opportunity to make Python more attractive to a broader audience that includes hobbyists and folks that do not want to pay for commercial C compilers. And I think there may very well be more C code in typical projects with all the cool tools getting used, like Pyrex and such. [snip] The rest of your message provided great information. Thank you very much. -- Patrick K. O'Brien Orbtech http://www.orbtech.com Schevo http://www.schevo.org Pypersyst http://www.pypersyst.org -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
